Monday Morning Musings Take Two

Someone really should come up with some kind of Monday Morning Musings title for me with all T's. Since pretty much every MMM I do is on a Tuesday lately. Totally Terrific Tuesday Talk or something. In defense of this MMM, it did start out on Monday, however that post turned into something else entirely. So here we are on our second go round. I'll try not to be so philosophical this time. So if you read my other post, you know that on Saturday we went to this park and saw this statue. My kids were fascinated with it. The detail is so fantastic. They were getting all up close to it and were amazed at how real and detailed everything was from his gun to his shoelaces that were flapping in the breeze to the stitching on his clothes to the texture of his skin.

My mom and Lauren met us at the park and we had lunch with them there. Some of us even got a little nap in.

Aubrey spent most of her time at the park on this balance board. She is pretty good at it. I think the longest she stayed balanced was 26 seconds. Much longer than anyone else. Some of us, who shall remain nameless, had a hard time staying balanced for more than 3 seconds.

Emily
Zac

Addy, who has the ability to make friends wherever she goes made new best friends at the park. And why climb up the climbing wall on the playground when you can climb real rock walls in the pavillion?

Em and Addy

After we left the park we had to stop by Target to return some running shoes I bought for Emily, which were a whole size and a half too small. (She is in a youth running group that my neighbor started. They run 3 times a week and are training for a 5K in October.) Her feet must have grown since we bought her new school shoes just a few weeks ago. Her feet are officially bigger than mine now! Anyhoo, while Em and I were taking care of the shoe stuff, Steve and the other kids were playing around in the store. We found them pumping iron in the fitness section. OK, little Miss Aubrey has some muskles on her skinny little self!

Trying on bike helmets

All my kids love to read. But Zac is a reading maniac. Maniac I say! He has read all the Harry Potter books several times. Last week he finished the book he was reading and we didn't have anything new for him to read and it was too late to go to the library. So he read a Harry Potter book (for the bazillionth time) just to fill in until he could get a new book. I asked him, why start that book now when he can go to the library tomorrow and get something else. Well, by the next night, he had finished the whole thing. I got him 2 new books from the library and he finished both of those in a day and a half. It reminded me of when I was about his age and I was reading all the time too. I always had a book in my hand. And I would go through them like nuthin'. I have this memory of spending the day with my grandpa and reading (I'm so embarrassed to tell you what I was reading. OK. Sweet Valley High. There, I said it.) like crazy. I finished the book I was on and he took me to the store to buy another one. Later that day I finished that one and when I told him I had finished and asked him if we could go get the next book in the series he just sighed and said, "OK, let's go get in the car". And he took me to the store for the second time in that day to buy the next book in the SVH series.

Addy and I have decided to do Home School Pre School this year. It has really been a lot of fun so far. Here she is painting a picture at school. She explained to me how artists have a paint pallet and how they have to hold it. She then demonstrated and made me go get my camera so I could photograph the demonstration.






A few weeks ago I was sitting at the computer and I was on Facebook. Addy came and this is what she said, I am copying and pasting this from my dad's wall on FB:

"Mom, can you go to Papa's page, I need to text him something" Addy loves Papa. You're the best. Grandma loves you. And I miss you. I love you Papa. You were the best. Love, Addy. Love to Papa. "Hee Hee. Papa's gonna freak when he sees this!"

You know how it's my self appointed job to document all the strange and awesome things I see happening in our neighborhood? So this is something that happened a few weeks ago. It was early one morning. I looked out the window and could see all these hot air balloons. I made the mistake of pointing them out to my kids because instead of getting ready for school that morning, they just wanted to sit and watch these.

So my friend and neighbor April and I have been training for our wards Relief Society 2nd annual 5K by walking the kids to school every morning. I'm just kidding. There is no training going on during those walks, unless you count training for the end of the world. Which we are doing pretty good at that with our "Doom and Gloom" talks we have on a regualr basis. We are thinking about starting a club and having our own newsletter titled, "Doom and Gloom". It's gonna be great! Anyway. We did have a little neighborhood 5K last Saturday in which April and I participated in by walking. OK. It was so much fun. Who knew a 5K could be fun? It was fun thanks in part to our FANTASTIC and ever so HILARIOUS Relief Society President:
So, she and her presidency thought it would be funny to take pictures of themselves dressed in these hot spandex get ups and place them along the route. I thought it would be funny to play a little practical joke on the RS President, so I had someone send me a copy of this picture of her. And since I am in charge of the program for our ward on Sunday I made a real program for everyone else and I made two special ones for her with this picture on the front. I gave them to the boys who were standing at the chapel doors on either side passing the programs out. When she walked in they handed it to her. She happened to walk in the door just as Sacrament Meeting was starting and Zac is the one who handed her the program. She walked a few steps, looked at the program and then turned around and glared at me. It was kinda funny.





Anyway, like I said, the 5K was so fun. But it was more than fun. We had a very special moment along the way. At a certain time during the route, we all stopped and made our way to a sisters home in our ward. Her husband had just passed away the day before. Our group of Relief Society sisters went to her house Saturday morning and we sang the song "As Sisters In Zion" to her. It was a wonderful, spiritual experience as this group of ladies and friends gathered in our sisters house as she was grieving and sang that song to her. It made me so thankful to belong to such a wonderful organization of women that does so much good throughout the world. I was just having a discussion last month with my visiting teaching companion and one of the ladies we visit. We were talking about the Relief Society and how we ourselves can't change the world. But as a part of the Relief Society as a whole, which is a Society that is found throughout the world, if we do our part by helping those around us by giving love and support and help and relief, we can change the world. I was so thankful that I had that opportunity Saturday morning to stand in that room full of some of the greatest women I know and in a small way offer love and support to a sister who was suffering.